


savor these golden days

by nachuuki



Series: docosahexaenoic acid [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon-Compliant, Gen, M/M, Post-Battle of the Garbage Dump, Shippy Gen, nekoma gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 12:43:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20174464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nachuuki/pseuds/nachuuki
Summary: Eyes on the back of the teammate who has always protected his, Tetsurou lets himself fall into his rhythm.





	savor these golden days

**Author's Note:**

  * For [snowdrops](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowdrops/gifts).

> i finished reading the nekoma v karasuno match today and it destroyed me, naturally. so i did the obvious thing and wrote a kuroyaku, set in the same timeline as my previous one.
> 
> for my dear friend linn: thank you for being my biggest cheerleader when it comes to my writing, and especially my kuroyaku. i couldn't have done it without you, friend - and i am always thankful that kuroyaku brought us together.

_ Take the day off_, Coach Nekomata says.

_ You fought well_, Coach Naoi says.

_ I’m going to wake up with a fever, tomorrow, _ Kenma had said after the match. Now, on the train ride home, he fixes Tetsurou with that catlike gaze, eyes still alight with the excitement of the game. He doesn’t tell Tetsurou not to stay up to review the video of the day’s match, or not to tear himself apart over the things he cannot change. He doesn’t, and even if he did, they both know that Tetsurou would still do it, anyway.

He does say, _ If you do anything stupid, you’re going to make yourself sick, Kuro_.

Tetsurou takes it for what it is. Today, he reflects, is the last day for him. In equal parts, it is the first day for Kenma, and Tetsurou does his best to be glad for it rather than jealous.

Yamamoto may have been onto something, Tetsurou thinks.

(_Are you_, he had said, catching his breath between laps of flying falls leading up to the inter high, _ a masochist, Captain?_)

Because really, there’s no other explanation for why he should be standing outside Nekoma’s gym at six o’clock sharp on a day that he has off, ready for practice with a team that he is supposed to be retiring from.

A pitiful _ tch _startles Tetsurou from his thoughts—a good thing, too, he thinks, shaking off the sentimentality, because it's not becoming of the team's super cool captain to get _emotional_ about things as mundane as _six o'clock practice_—accompanied by a set of familiar footsteps. Yaku announces his presence with a scoff: “Haven’t you ever heard of a day off before?”

Tetsurou grins in return.

“Loser buys the winner coffee?” he says, and then doesn’t wait before he takes off running, Yaku’s steps close behind him.

All things in life must change eventually, he thinks. But for today—just for this morning, they can hold on for even this much longer.

Tetsurou runs hard, harder than he has in any of the last practices he can remember. He no longer has any games to conserve his energy for, no longer has a team to keep himself in top shape for. He leaves all of his regrets from yesterday in his wake, _ this _ receive that should’ve been more clean and _ that _ block that should’ve been a half-moment sooner reduced to dust under the thundering of his footsteps.

On the trail, Yaku runs beside him, and Tetsurou forces himself to keep looking ahead, running harder. He tries to savor how it feels to run alongside a teammate, because tomorrow, he will have to learn how to face things alone, and—

_ Alone_. Tetsurou doesn’t want to be alone. He isn’t ready to face _ what comes after _ alone, isn’t ready to retire or graduate or enroll in a university. He is not a person who was ever made to do things by himself, never meant for an existence outside of a greater whole. He is nothing, _ nothing _ without the teammates who have fought by his side for the past three years. The teammates whose sides _ he _ has fought by for the past three years.

Yaku passes him on his right, and eyes on the back of the teammate who has always protected his, Tetsurou lets himself fall into his rhythm.

They sit on the front step of the gym, Tetsurou’s pocket three hundred yen lighter. He cracks open his can of coffee, and they sit there in silence, staring at the sight in front of them like they’re afraid they’ll forget it now that their high school volleyball careers are officially over.

_ I don’t want to let this go. I’m not ready to say goodbye. _

How pathetic he must be, Tetsurou thinks, sitting on the front step of a stupid old gym that he can’t let go of, the has-been captain of a losing team, sobbing into his can of coffee before school starts.

“God,” Yaku says disdainfully, not looking any better off than Tetsurou feels. “I knew you were ugly but I’ve never seen you look this disgusting before.”

“Look who’s talking,” Tetsurou sneers back at him, “_dumbass_.”

In response, Yaku pulls the absolute most _ hideous _ face that Tetsurou has even seen—and he’s seen a lot, in three years of being on the same team—and he laughs, to Yaku’s even greater annoyance, and it’s all great fun until mid-sip the canned coffee makes its way up and out through his nasal passage.

Disbelief crosses Yaku’s face, and then _ he’s _ laughing too, and they’re both sitting there on the step, laughing and crying like fools, and Tetsurou doesn’t want to ever let this memory go, either.

A bell rings in the distance, and Tetsurou wipes the coffee off of his face.

“Loser buys the winner lunch,” he says, and then he’s dashing off to class.

_ Not yet, not yet, not yet. _

Tetsurou lies awake in bed, staring at the cracks in his ceiling. Tomorrow, practice resumes in the morning for the continuing players on the team and in the afternoon for the third-years, when he will hand off his duties as captain to Fukunaga. Tomorrow, he will retire from Nekoma High’s volleyball club, officially, and he will no longer be bound to them by any responsibility.

(Briefly, he entertains the thought of failing all of his finals.)

His phone vibrates at his bedside, and he almost falls off trying to reach it, tangled in his covers from turning restlessly since he climbed in.

**[03:01] Yakkun:** See you tomorrow at 6

**[03:01] Yakkun:** Asshole

Tetsurou laughs quietly to himself, burrowing deeper into his blankets, and types out his reply.

**[03:02] Kuroo:** Race you

**[03:02] Kuroo:** Loser buys nikuman

When Coach Naoi arrives to see Tetsurou and Yaku, out of breath from their pre-practice race, and Kai—_oh, you mean class doesn't start at six? oh, I'm wearing my practice clothes instead of my uniform? how silly of me, my mistake_—he just laughs, shaking his head fondly. “I should've known.”

**Author's Note:**

> title from [eat your heart out](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzYIHUfEfMI). come talk to me about kuroyaku on [twitter](http://twitter.com/nachuuki_)!


End file.
